


brushy creek

by dicaeopolis



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Agender Akaashi Keiji, M/M, Multi, Nonbinary Character, Other, Polyamory, Pre-Relationship, Summer, Trans Bokuto Koutarou, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-13
Updated: 2017-07-13
Packaged: 2018-12-01 19:52:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11493585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dicaeopolis/pseuds/dicaeopolis
Summary: Kisses and summers can get dangerous.





	brushy creek

**Author's Note:**

> ORIGINALLY PART OF A 4-SEASON FIC FOR THE BAK WEEK PROMPT "SEASONS" BUT WINTER AND SPRING WERE MAKING ME SAD TO WRITE SO HERE IS SUMMER. [autumn is over here.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11493642) written to brushy creek by the josh abbott band.
> 
> TY TO TAWNI FOR LOOKIN THIS OVER FOR ME ILY
> 
> on [twit](https://twitter.com/dickaeopolis/status/885614957185957893) \+ [tumb](http://vivasimplemindedness.tumblr.com/post/162953271283/brushy-creek)

Kenma doesn’t like to go outside in the summer, so lazy Saturday afternoons are usually just the three of them, sometimes holed up in Bokuto's basement to play Smash with a vengeance, sometimes killing time with Kuroo's talent for ukulele and Akaashi's talent for singing and Bokuto's talent for volume. Today, it's too hot to think at all, so they've wandered down to the creek near Kuroo's house. They brought swimsuits, a basket of lunch, a battered radio that's crackling out oldies none of them recognize where Kuroo placed it on a stump next to the water.

The creek is flowing broad and flat, and Bokuto immediately strips off his shirt and splashes in. Kuroo pauses and blinks away the spray of water from his eyes, grinning at his friend. "Eager, bro?"

"Bokuto-san, your shirt," Akaashi calls, untangling their face from where said sweat-damp t-shirt had hit them.

Bokuto waves them off and flops down in the shallow water, back resting against a smooth boulder midstream. "Now's not the time for shirts, 'kaashi."

Under their wide-brimmed sunhat, Akaashi looks vaguely constipated. "If your scars get sunburned-"

"Can't hear you," Bokuto sighs, sliding downwards until his ears are dipping underwater. "Too hot."

"You're sitting in the water," Akaashi points out, at the same time that Kuroo chimes in, muffled through the half-off t-shirt he's pulling over his face,  _ "hot damn." _

"Eyyyyyy," Bokuto calls back, and raises a fist in Kuroo's vague direction.

Kuroo wades into the water to return the bump, and then carefully lowers himself down into the flow of the creek. As Akaashi watches, Kuroo throws them a crooked smirk. "Coming, Keiji? The water's nice."

Akaashi folds their arms over their chest. "You have goosebumps on your arms."

"Not a problem. I just about forgot what it felt like to be cold." Kuroo stretches his arms over his head, lets out a long and exaggerated groan, and then rolls over in the water towards Bokuto. "Hold me, Bokuto."

"No way!" Bokuto snorts, fending him off with a lazy arm.  _ "I'm _ still way too hot."

"You're saying that because you're a furnace. C'mon, help me out."

Akaashi just sighs, bundles the t-shirt into their backpack, and begins pulling off their own clothing to the noise of Bokuto and Kuroo's splashy squabble in the background.

 

* * *

The heat of the day passes with minimal speaking and maximum submergence. Once the sun's rays start lengthening, Bokuto is the first to pull himself out of the water, sprawling out on the tough grass of the bank and closing his eyes against the sun. Akaashi, perched on the boulder mid-stream, idly watches the rise and fall of his chest, the V of his hips where they disappear into his swim trunks.

Then they feel another pair of eyes on them, and when they look down, Kuroo is giving them  _ that _ smirk, low-lidded over sparkling eyes, with a knowing quirk at the left corner of his mouth.

"Stop that," Akaashi mutters. The quirk just grows bigger, and Kuroo inclines his head without a word.  _ Asshole. _ They slide off the boulder and head towards the shore, kicking up enough water behind them to splash Kuroo in the face as they go.

Kuroo is really the only one who can make them be this petty, but judging by his quiet snort behind Akaashi, he doesn't really mind.

Bokuto opens one eye as Akaashi's footsteps approach. "Oh, hey! Are you guys going to lie in the grass with me too?"

"I'm going to eat lunch," Akaashi tells him, not bothering to give Kuroo the satisfaction of surprise that he’s padding along silently behind them. It's really long past lunchtime, but the food in their backpack is bento boxes and bottles of root beer, so they like to maintain a pretense of timeliness.

"I'm cold," Kuroo announces, and without preamble flops down on top of his best friend.

_ "I'm not!" _ Bokuto protests. “And you’re still wet!”

There's another scuffle, and when Akaashi hands over Bokuto's bento box, Kuroo has been unceremoniously dumped onto the grass next to him. He pushes himself up to lean back on his elbows, shaking bits of grass out of his untidy hair. "Well, I can't cuddle with Keiji, they're just as chilly as I am."

"In personality, I'm chillier," Akaashi says without looking up.

_ "See," _ Kuroo complains, as he starts eating out of Bokuto's bento. "You gotta keep me warm, bro. We can't just be cuddle buddies in the cool months."

Bokuto huffs at him. “You can’t cuff me like that!”

“Aw, babe.” Kuroo shakes his head in mock disappointment. “And here I thought we had something.”

"This is romantic enough already," Bokuto tosses back. Akaashi’s fingers grip the grass, squeezing too-tightly. "The sun's gonna set and everything, it's gonna be so pretty."

Kuroo cocks an eyebrow at him. "No, no, if you're going to romance me, you gotta put out." He swipes a grain of rice off his lips with his tongue. "You aren't getting any of my sappy love poetry til you've at least given up a kiss."

"Oh, I'd totally kiss you, bro," Bokuto announces, like it's no big deal.

Kuroo is definitely sitting up now. "Yeah?"

Bokuto nods, gaining steam. "Oh, yeah. You're super hot, you know that, right?"

"Thanks, bro." Kuroo looks way too pleased about the compliment.  _ It can't be something he hears infrequently, _ Akaashi thinks sourly, and then hates themself a little bit more. "You're not half-bad yourself."

Bokuto grins at him. "Bet  _ you'd  _ make out with me."

"Oh, I so would," Kuroo agrees, easy as anything.

"You would!" Bokuto beams.

"Mm-hmm."

"Then what are we waiting for? C'mere," Bokuto says and he's half-laughing, even as Kuroo scoots over and leans down.

Akaashi isn't unfamiliar with the term  _ morbid fascination. _ Like watching a trainwreck. You can't look away from something getting destroyed beyond repair.

Well, Akaashi thinks wryly, they wouldn't put it so dramatically. But there's no disputing that their eyes are glued to their two best friends - Bokuto's hand has made its way into the rat's nest at the back of Kuroo's head, Kuroo has planted one hand in the grass on Bokuto's other side for balance, and they're smiling against each other even as Bokuto's lips part and -  _ oh, _ that's a-

They break apart then, Bokuto still laughing.  _ "Whoa, _ that was-"

"Mind-blowing?" Kuroo prompts. "Made you weak at the knees?"

"You put your tongue in my mouth! That's gross!"

_ "You're _ gross," Kuroo snorts. His eyes are shining, and Bokuto is still smiling like he's forgotten how to do anything else, and Akaashi looks at the pair of them and thinks that yes, this makes sense. "I'm the world's best kisser. Scout's honor."

Bokuto sticks out his own tongue back at Kuroo. “‘Kaashi, I know you were watching, didn’t it look weird? I mean, it was  _ nice, _ but-”

“I really wouldn’t know,” Akaashi bites out.

Bokuto’s excited rambling cuts off abruptly, and when Akaashi glances up, he’s sitting up and staring at them, teeth worrying his lower lip. “I - I mean - shit, I didn’t mean it like that, to leave you out-”

“Don’t worry about it,” says Akaashi, so dry their voice is practically crackling. They’re being too harsh, and they know it, but the bitterness is spilling out before they can catch even half of it. “You two seem plenty occupied on your own.”

Bokuto's eyebrows are jumping all over his forehead. "Oh,  _ no _ \- shit, sorry, it’s not that I wouldn't - hey, I'll kiss you, too-"

"I don't need you to feel sorry for me," Akaashi mutters, sounding much less sarcastic and much more sincere than they'd intended. Their throat is in an awful knot, and they can feel Kuroo’s watchful gaze on their cheeks.

_ “No! _ I  _ want _ to - I  _ really _ do, I-”

Bokuto gives up on words just about then, and the next thing Akaashi knows, their back is pressed against the scratchy grass and Bokuto is looming over them. He leans down and presses his lips to theirs before they can so much as gasp out a protest.

Bokuto’s kiss is sloppy, wet, and so urgent that Akaashi can hardly breathe. Akaashi’s hand flies up to grasp the back of his head and tug him back a little, with the intent of pulling him off and then maybe running away through the fields to change their name and live in a cave forever.

But once Bokuto draws back a bit and stops smothering them, Akaashi forgets about the cave, because kissing Bokuto is turning their limbs too shaky to run much of anywhere. His lips are parted as they move over Akaashi’s, and his chest is broad and sun-warmed where it presses against the front of Akaashi’s swimsuit.

Their fingers curl into the soft fuzz at the nape of Bokuto’s neck, still a little damp from the creek, and he makes a quiet noise into their mouth. Akaashi inhales through their nose, and then leans up a fraction of a millimeter to kiss him back, allowing wishful thinking and impossible daydreams to have the briefest moment of their way.

When Bokuto draws back and they sit up, Akaashi’s head is tumbling like water over the stones of the creekbed. Bokuto swipes his tongue over his lips, looking anywhere but Akaashi, and concern surges up over their own spinning thoughts. They brush their knuckles over the back of his hand, a silent reassurance.

Kuroo is watching the pair of them with that particular enigmatic expression of his, the one Akaashi can never quite catch a read on. Although, Akaashi notes with a spark of vicious satisfaction, his lips are also parted a little, and his fingers are curled into fists at his sides.

“Okay,” says Akaashi, because nobody else is saying anything, and their chest feels kind of like a cement mixer. “I think I’m going to go back in the water-”

"No!" Bokuto’s head jerks up. His voice is too loud, and he points at Akaashi like he has an idea, which is usually dangerous. "Kuroo kissed me, and I kissed you, but you two haven't kissed each other yet!"

"We  _ really _ don't need to-" Akaashi grinds out.

"Do you want to?" Kuroo interrupts.

"That's  _ beside the point-" _

"Do you want to?" Kuroo asks again, honey-golden eyes burning a hole into Akaashi.

"I-" Akaashi splutters- "I wouldn't be  _ opposed _ \- but you two  _ just-" _

"For fuck's sake, Keiji," Kuroo says, exasperated, and puts a finger under their chin.

With a detached section of their brain, Akaashi thinks they must be some special breed of masochist to kiss Kuroo back.

His lips are softer than Bokuto’s, slow and lingering. One hand flutters up to rest on Akaashi’s hip, then around behind their waist. Akaashi's swimsuit is a one-piece, but it's open-backed, and Kuroo's cool fingertips brush against the bare skin, sending shivers up their shoulderblades and the back of their neck.

Kuroo kisses with his eyes open, like he's looking for something. When he draws back, for a moment, they just stare at each other.

Akaashi’s been working at the convenience store in their neighborhood since their first year, and they’re often the one who closes up at the end of a day. Putting cans back on the shelves where they belong, mopping up customers’ messes, marking down items to restock. Making sure the chaos of the day's business is erased.

Put everything back like it was. Flick off the lights, lock up, go home. It’s a routine Akaashi is used to. They know how it has to go, after this.

"There,"  Bokuto says. "Now we've all kissed each other. And it isn't weird."

Akaashi studies their hands. Kuroo laughs, and anyone but Akaashi would've missed the hint of strain. "Right."

"Let's go home," Akaashi says suddenly. "It's getting late."

They head back barefoot over the field towards Kuroo's house, through the gentle waves of grass that seem endless. Periodically, Bokuto shakes a spray of water from his hair, in a futile attempt to keep his bangs out of his face. Kuroo's hand is dangling close to Akaashi's, and Bokuto doesn't seem to care that his shirt is still stuffed in Akaashi's backpack, a few drops of water from his hair rolling down his bare chest.

Akaashi grips the straps of their backpack more tightly and keeps walking. Dangerous thoughts, these are. And summer should be unchanging, unending, timeless.


End file.
